


Deaged Batgirls

by Sroloc_Elbisivni



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Batfam fluff, De-aging, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Gen, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 01:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5477612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sroloc_Elbisivni/pseuds/Sroloc_Elbisivni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason wants it on record that he did not sign up for this sh–sugar.<br/>“Mr. Hood?” A small hand tugs on the hem of his leather jacket. “Cass wants ice cream.”</p>
<p>AKA the fic with tiny!Steph and Cass that <i>everyone<i></i></i> was asking for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hinn_Raven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinn_Raven/gifts).



> This is all Steph's fault, because she made  
> [this text post](http://secretlystephaniebrown.tumblr.com/post/129354431289/how-come-theres-so-much-batboys-get-de-aged-fic)  
> And anyway. I got inspired. Have four parts of what will hopefully be continued.

Jason wants it on record that he did not sign up for this sh–sugar.  
“Mr. Hood?” A small hand tugs on the hem of his leather jacket. “Cass wants ice cream.”  
Jason would point out that Cass doesn’t talk and also has no idea what ice cream is, but since he spent the last ten minutes trying to convince them he’s an okay guy and getting seriously beat up by the assassin child, angering said assassin child by arguing with her self-proclaimed best friend seems like a bad idea.   
Also, it’s seriously possible that Stephanie’s magical Cass-understanding powers have translated with this stupid spell and she actually does want ice cream.  
“Fine. We’ll get ice cream.”   
Steph cheers. Cass’s expression doesn’t change.  
“Come on come on come on!” Steph grabs his hand and tugs him along.   
Jason reaches for his comm with his free hand as Steph starts talking at Cass about ice cream flavors. “O, come in. O, _come in._ ANYONE, come in. I’ll even take _Replacement—_ just _someone_ get me out of this cr–crud.”

 

* * *

 

This is not how Jason expected to spend the evening.

The current conditions between him and the other vigilantes are “fuck off and leave me alone and I won’t kill anyone, got it?”

That had been his exact wording. It’d worked so far.

And then, half an hour ago, he’d been doing his thing over on 23rd and West, right in the middle of Crime Alley, when a blue-skinned dude with a wand had streaked by on a _flying fucking carpet,_ of all the fucking things. _Cackling._

You know who cackles? _Shady fucking people._

So he knew then and there his nice, peaceful evening of busting druggie heads was gonna head downhill fast.

He couldn’t chase the guy, but the wand he had been carrying was trailing purple sparks that littered the ground in a trail headed straight towards the warehouse district.

That led to him finding two five-year-olds in Batgirl and Black Bat costumes with _way_ too much Kevlar to have originally been made for that size.

Now he’s eating ice cream out of a tub on a playground with two tiny girls wearing now-oversized undershirts as dresses, trying not to think about how much damage control he’ll have to do on his rep after this, and desperately and frantically trying to raise another person on a comm filched from the piles of leftover supplies.

He will bet whatever’s he’s got left on his reputation after word of this incident gets out that O is on the other end, listening and _cackling._

Shady people. He knows them.

Jason glares at the security camera on the nearest building and takes a savage bite of his ice cream.

A nut hits him on the forehead, and he turns his glare on the culprit.

Cass, unruffled, simply plucks another nut out of the ice cream and eats it, perched on his helmet like it’s her own personal throne.

“You’re frowning,” Steph tells him. “Stop it.”

The force of the glare turns on Steph now. Cass throws another nut at Jason—this time, one embedded in a glob of ice cream. It smacks into his forehead and slides down, leaving a cold, sticky streak all the way down onto his mask.

He wipes it off and flicks it onto the ground.

“Of course, you do realize,” he says with perfect calm, “that this means _war_.” He digs his spoon in and flings a chunk of cookie dough at Cass, who snatches it out of the air and smears it onto Steph.

It kind of all devolves from there into a sticky, sugary, giggly mess. Jason hasn’t had this much fun that didn’t involve hurting people since…since…

It is really fucking sad that he can’t remember.

He’s lying on the ground with both girls sitting on top of him—Cass wasn’t too salient on the finer points of _play_ -fighting at first, but a couple bruises more or less won’t really make much difference at this point—and letting them pull at his mask with sticky hands (the thing has withstood fire and near-drowning and way more supervillains than he’s bothered counting, which makes it either sad or hilarious that two small children are getting closer than anyone else) when a shadow looms over him.

Gee, _that’s_ a familiar loom.

He tips his head back and almost gets a finger up a nostril for his troubles. It’s totally worth it for the expression on Bruce’s fucking _face._

“Hey,” he says, and that makes the girls look up.

Cass somersaults backwards until she’s crouched in a fighting stance at a safe distance from Bruce, looking back and forth from Jason and Stephanie to the vigilante with panic in her eyes.

Jason realizes that she’s trying to assess whether or not it the two of them would be in more danger if she attacked Batman or not and has to work very hard not to punch something.

He keeps his body language loose and relaxed, knowing that’s what Cass’ll be taking her cues from, and pushes Steph off so he can get to his feet and stand between Cass and Bruce.

_Relax, relax…all friends here._

Steph has ducked behind his legs and is peering up at Bruce with caution.

“What. Happened.”

The “I am the Night” voice stopped working on Jason years ago. “The fu—dge should I know? Saw some dude with a wand, traced it back, found them. Physical and mental regression. They’re _kids,_ I’m not a freaking monster. Besides, Cass wanted ice cream.”

He can _see_ Bruce stop in his mental tracks. It’s glorious.

“She wanted ice cream.”

“Yup.”

If Bruce asks, the “world’s greatest detective” game he likes to play is up. If he doesn’t ask, he’ll be consumed by burning curiosity for the rest of time.

Win-win.

It doesn’t get that far. Steph tugs on his jacket again and asks “Why do you know _Batman?_ ”

“He and I go way back,” he assures her. “You guys are the only witnesses to a supervillain right now, which makes you super-duper important to his investigation. He’s gonna take you for a ride in his awesome car and ask you some questions and give you the best cookies in the world now, okay?”

“Are you coming too?” And _fuck,_ her eyes are big and blue and wet and _fuck._

“Nah. I gotta do some clue-hunting. See if I can track down the dude with the wand you saw.”

Steph looks from him to Batman to Cass, who’s come up behind Jason’s other side at some point, and tugs him down to whisper in his ear.

“Promise it’s safe?”

“Yeah. I promise.” They’ll be a hell of a lot better off at the Manor than they would be with him.

He starts to get up, but she pulls on his sleeve again and he gets back down.

“Can you check on my mom?”

Something in his stomach twists, but he tells her, “Sure,” and lets her rattle off the address he knows is too old to do any good. Jason pinky promises to check up on Crystal, walks the two girls to the Batmobile, and helps them climb in.

Well, Jason helps Steph climb in. Cass hangs back, latches onto his legs from the front for all of five seconds, and then scrambles away and up into the passenger seat next to Steph without any help.

He shuts the door after them and watches it go tearing away.

The comm in Jason’s ear activates with a buzz, proving that O is indeed a sadistic mastermind who could destroy them all if she wanted.

“You were watching everything, weren’t you.”

“ _You know better than to ask silly questions, Hood.”_

“I should. What’s Crystal Brown’s current address?”

“ _You don’t have to do it. I can send Red Robin, he’s closer.”_

“Nah. I pinky-promised.” A thought occurs that sends a wide and wicked smile spreading across his face. “Besides, Big Bird will be calling in all the little birdies any minute now to babysit. I wouldn’t want anything to get in the way of that.”


	2. A Retrieval

Tim’s in the middle of patrol when Oracle’s voice comes over his comm. “ _Oracle to Red Robin. Oracle to Red Robin. Come in, Red Robin.”_

“Red Robin here.” He swings up onto a gargoyle and scans the surrounding streets. “What is it?”

“ _You might want to head back to the Batcave.”_ Her voice is amused. This can’t be good.

“O, what’s going on?”

“ _Nothing too bad. But could you swing by that one warehouse on 21 st where the drug bust went down a couple weeks ago and grab the stuff you find? And maybe don’t freak out.”_

He freezes in the middle of cocking his grappling gun. “O. You’re telling me not to freak out.”

“ _Yes._ ”

“ _You_ are telling _me_ not to freak out and expecting me to listen.”

“ _Was I not clear before?_ ”

“You are the opposite of reassuring and I hate you and I am not giving those bug checks back to you on time.”

“ _Wrong on all counts.”_

“I really hate you.”

Her response is a cackle. What kind of person actually _cackles_?

* * *

 

The warehouse is empty except for empty costumes puddled on the floor. Cass and Stephanie are nowhere to be seen.

Tim freaks out.

 

* * *

 

He gets back to the Batcave in record time to see one of the weirdest things that he ever has in this grotto. And that has a lot of competition (if he never thinks about the thing with half the League, a good quarter of the Titans, and pie again, it will be too soon).

A small blonde girl is sitting curled on a corner of the examination table, shrieking at the top of her lungs at the sight of a long-suffering Alfred with a needle. Bruce and Damian are both working very hard to contain a miniature whirlwind fighting its way towards the area.

And both of them look very, very, familiar.

“Should I call Zatanna or Doc Leslie?” Tim calls.

He gets a grunt, a disparagement of his intelligence, and a “I believe both would be most helpful, Master Tim—Miss Stephanie, as you can see, I am putting this away now, _please_ calm down, you are unduly distressing your friend—and perhaps Master Dick as well.”

 

* * *

 

Jason is sipping tea in Crystal Brown’s living room when his phone buzzes. He ignores it and keeps chatting with Stephanie’s mother over the finer adaptation points of the 2005 _Pride and Prejudice_ , trying not to think about how even with his life, this is the weirdest thing that has happened today.

He was just going to pop in and out, let Mrs. Brown know that her daughter was a-ok but would probably be off the radar for a few days, and then there was _tea_ and _politeness_ and now he’s trapped.

The phone keeps buzzing with new texts, and finally lets him make his excuses and duck out into the hallway.

_10 NEW TEXT MESSAGES_

From: Dickhead

_jaaaay_

_jaybird_

_jason help_

_jason we need u_

_help me jason-wan kenobi ur my only hope_

_jason small children are evil_

From: restaurant chain

_CASS IS A DEMON CHILD_

_STEPH IS WORSE_

From: unholy offspring

_Todd your presence is required_

_What have you done to imprint yourself on young impresshoaishdgasdhkjadsvhkajnfa_

He ditched the comm as soon as he got Crystal’s address, so he calls Damian’s cell phone.

Someone picks up, but doesn’t answer. Jason can hear soft breathing on the other end.

“Hey, Cass, is that you?”

More breathing.

“Can you pass the phone to Steph?”

There’s a high-pitched shriek in the background, the sounds of a scuffle, and then Damian’s voice. “ _Todd. Cain and Brown are both small children. I believe their mental facilities have been damaged, as they are asking for you.”_ Another shriek, and a quiet growl _. “In fact, they are demanding it_.”

“ _Mr. Hood!”_

And that would be Stephanie. “Look, I can’t just—”

“ _Mr. Hood, Batman’s MEAN! And he’s got an evil robot butler! With NEEDLES!”_

Jason groans and scrubs a hand across his face. “…I’ll be right there.”


	3. A Checkup

Dr. Leslie has dealt with some very strange situations that involve Bruce over the years. This is far from the strangest one, though thankfully one of the least painful. As long as she doesn’t mention the word needles when Stephanie can hear her, and doesn’t move too quickly around Cassandra, that is.   

She’s dealt with similar scenarios before, though never for the girls, so it’s a simple matter to get the tests run she needs to check for ill effects while Zatanna does some slight-of-hand to distract them, both from the stealthy blood draw and her scan of their auras. She’s also trying to convince Leslie to come to the League Ladies Poker Night.

“No, I’m serious, I really think it’d be good for you—Steph, honey can you hold out your left hand please? Thanks. Take a night off from the clinic, eat good food, drink good wine, make some money, complain about Bruce to people who know what he’s actually like. Believe me when I say that’s the best part.”

Leslie laughed as she carefully shone a light into Cass’s eyes. “Just keep those open for me, will you? Okay, okay, good—I don’t know, Zatanna, it seems a little intimidating. And I can’t exactly protect myself if Wonder Woman or someone is a sore loser. I need to put this into your ear now, Cass. It’s to check your temperature. Is that ok with you?”

Cass nods, so Leslie slips a fresh cone on the thermometer and puts it in slowly, telegraphing her movements as best she can.

“Nah, Di just plays a couple hands and folds early. It’s Kory you want to watch out for. She learned Ksh’val poker in a Gordanian prison and mixes up the rules all the time. Which, as far as we can figure out, are none. She once tried to knife Dinah over a stack of chips. Hey, kiddo, watch the bunny!” A little rabbit made of purple smoke hops around Steph as she laughs in delight. Cass tips her head to the side, watching.

“Cass, sweetie, I’m going to test your reflexes now, which means I’m going to have to hit your knees with this little hammer. It’s not supposed to hurt, so I need you to just relax and let whatever happens happen, okay?”

Cass nods, still distracted as the rabbit bounces through the air, making Stephanie twist and turn to follow it—and incidentally, allowing Zatanna to hover one hand above the crown of the girl’s head. Cass frowns at the sight, and Leslie takes the chance to lightly tap her knee.

Cass’s foot swings up so fast and so far it stands straight out for a second. The girl stares at her own leg after it goes back down and frowns, as though trying to work out why her body had done something she hadn’t given it permission to do.

That’s when the bunny hops across the intervening space to reach her, changes into a glittery black butterfly, and lands square on Cass’s nose.

She goes cross-eyed and wide-eyed at the same time, avid fascination clear on her face.

The butterfly flutters its wings just a bit, and a giggle startles its way out of her.

In the background, Zatanna flicks her fingers, and the butterfly multiplies until Cass is surrounded by a cloud of flapping creatures and laughing herself breathless. Stephanie looks like she isn’t sure whether to sulk or grin, but grinning wins out when a few of the butterflies venture back to her and turn into purple rabbits again.

“Their auras are fine,” Zatanna says, cheerfully. “Well, considering. They’ve regressed right along with the girls. Their older selves are still there, which is good on two fronts. One, this isn’t a swap situation—the Steph and Cass we know haven’t suddenly found themselves in the past. Two, if this was meant to be permanent, those older parts of themselves would have been erased. I can’t find a time limit, though. It could be days, or weeks, or months. We’ll know more if they catch the guy.”

Leslie sighs and packs up her checkup kit. “They’re both fine physically. No ill effects. I’ll let Bruce run the blood—he doesn’t have a backlog three days long—and let him decide. And honestly, I don’t know if I could get a night free to _come,_ Zatanna. Between the clinic and the regular messes _this_ lot get themselves into, I’m booked solid.

Zatanna sighs as they watch Cass and Steph huddle together, testing how far between them their smoke-animals can go before changing shape (about twenty inches in close proximity—Zatanna’s run experiments before). Right now, Steph’s got a lap full of purple rabbits while black butterflies rest all the way down Cass’s outstretched arms.

Damian, who had been left behind to keep an eye on things while the others track down the nutjob with the wand, creeps closer to the two girls from his spot in the shadowy corner of the cave. Cass gets a suspicious look on her face, but looks down at the butterflies and the smoke animal close enough to Steph to stay a bunny, but far enough away to take a nap on Cass’s foot, and she relaxes her shoulders and lets Damian come closer.

A couple of the smoke animals break away, gamboling and fluttering their way closer to the boy in the colorful Robin costume. As soon as they get within a twenty-inch radius of Damian, they change into dark red cats, no bigger than Leslie’s hand, twining around his legs and purring.

A motorcycle roars into the lowest level of the Cave, and a few moments later Jason comes up behind the two women and lets out a low whistle. Damian’s moved closer to the girls, and now all of them have laps full of smoky fauna.

“From the way Dick and the demon kid were carrying on, I was expecting fire and blood.”

“Yes, well, be glad you missed that part.”

“ _MR. HOOD!”_

Steph cannonballs into Jason’s legs and latches on, chattering away at top speed. Cass creeps up behind her, eyeing Zatanna and Leslie with caution. Leslie digs in her bag and offers the quiet girl a lollipop.

“—and then the magic lady made me a bunny an’ it turned into a butterfly for Cass an’ then she laughed and _oooo_ can I have a lollipop too?”

“Please,” Leslie reminds her, but hands it over anyway.

“Cherry! Here, Cass, these are candy, they’re real good—but not with the wrapper on,” she adds, too late. Cass had stuck the colorful end in, plastic and all, only to immediately spit it out again.

Jason can’t help it anymore. He sits down hard and laughs, and laughs, and laughs.


	4. A Little More Information

Batman and Nightwing call in about half an hour later. Jason is currently participating in a tea party with tea courtesy of Alfred, which is absolutely a vitally important enterprise, _Bruce,_ so no, he can’t leave. Zatanna goes instead. 

A few minutes later, Dick texts him a picture, which he checks while Damian is pouring the little plastic pot with all the gravity of an official tea ceremony. The image of a sad little old man who looks like he should be running an antique store or playing bridge in a nursing home is definitely unexpected.

The next text is a video with “LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL zee is scary sometimes” attached.

In his ignorance, he presses “play”.

A few seconds later, considerably more educated, effectively deterred from ever practicing magic if it means he’ll get yelled at like that, and desperately hoping that the little pitchers with big ears didn’t hear anything too bad, he closes it as fast as he can.

“What’s a “bug-brained fuckwit amateur?”

 

* * *

 

Zatanna calls again from the Batmobile, thankfully with less profanity this time.

“I don’t know what this as—asinine jerk was even thinking. Turns out he’s an antique dealer or some sh—sheep like that. He found a random magical artifact—the wand—and it basically possessed him. I’ve got the wand now, but unfortunately, I can’t figure out how to undo the spells yet.”

“Could you try breaking it?” Jason offers. Cassandra is scaling him like a set of monkey bars while Damian fields questions from Steph with surprising patience, so he shifts her to his hips and away from his head. “I mean, if the magic is all tied up in the wand…”

“Yeah, no, too risky. I break it, it maybe undoes the spells—but it also maybe makes them permanent, or explodes, or puts a hole the shape of an upside-down duck through every pane of glass within twenty miles. Magic has about as many rules as quantum physics does—that is to say, not a lot, and not consistent. It’s not worth the risk.” Zatanna held up a slim black box. “The wand’s contained in salted iron to nullify any magic. I’m going to take it to my place and study it, maybe get a second opinion from Doctor Fate, but if I can’t find a solution, we’ll have to wait for the spell to wear off on its own.”

Cass by this time has wriggled free of Jason’s arms and is in the process of climbing up his jacket until she perches on his shoulders, looking up at Zatanna on the big computer screen.

“And do we know how l—aauugh, Cash, shtop that.” She’s got a hand hooked around the side of his mouth, making it very hard to talk. He pulls it away and sighs. Zatanna looks far too amused. “How long that could be?”

“Why? So eager to miss making all these happy memories?”

He hopes his look adequately conveys that he has killed people for less than that remark.                         

“Alright, alright. Geez, you’re going to strain something. I don’t know. Year and a day is the traditional expiration date for spells that aren’t binding oaths—”

“ _What._ ”

“— _but,_ I don’t think it’ll take that long. Most spells nowadays are pretty short-term. The year-and-a-day is mostly just a built-in failsafe. Transformation spells tend to be a month or so—the moon plays a pretty big role.”

“Tonight’s the new moon.”

Zatanna sighs.

“New beginnings, new growth…perfect for youth spells. Though I have to admit, they usually aren’t quite so literal. Good thing it isn’t the waning moon, or we could be looking at crones instead of toddlers.”

Cass has moved from putting her hands in his mouth to covering his eyes and giggling. Jason sighs again. “Yeah. Good thing.”

He hears the telltale _click_ of a camera and Cass giggling.

Well, at least one Bruce and Dickie-boy get back he’ll be able to hand over the demon children and fuck off back to his nice, cold, _quiet,_ safehouse.

 

* * *

 

Or at least, that was the plan.

Within ten minutes, both little girls are conked out on the floor. Alfred scoops up Cass with ease, and Damian has been staring at both sleeping children with an expression somewhere between suspicion and…well, if Jason even _thought_ the word fondness, he’d probably get stabbed.

So he just sighs, and picks up Stephanie with extreme caution—has she been eating _rocks_ or something?—and follows Alfred up the stairs of the cave.

Jason knows that Steph doesn’t have a room of her own at the Manor, that she stays at a guest room if she has to.

He also remembers how freaked out he was the first night he woke up in one of those dreary, bare rooms—and he was twelve, and used to taking care of himself.

So he follows Alfred in Cass’s room and tucks Steph under the yellow duvet with the other girl. And then just…sort of stands around, because he should leave, right? That’s what he’s been doing. And it’s been working out pretty good, so he should stick with it, right?

But what if Steph and Cass wake up while he’s gone and they get scared and want to see him? It’d be a huge pain to have to get back across town, especially this late.

Alfred coughs. “Master Jason, I do believe that your old room is still available. I was also planning to make pancakes tomorrow morning, for the, ah, young mistresses. I am sure there would be plenty for you as well.”

Ooh, pancakes.

“Yeah, why the hell not?”

* * *

 

His room is exactly the way he left it. Same stacks of books on the table, same blue backpack dropped in the corner—probably with _way_ overdue homework inside—same clothes kicked into the corner. There’s less dust that he’d have expected, until he sits down on the bedspread and a cloud of it puffs up around him.

After the sneezing fit has died down, Jason goes looking for clean sheets.

The Superman ones he bought as soon as he figured out that Bruce was both not going to kick him out and very annoyed with any signs of superhero favoritism not directed towards him should do quite nicely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT 5/4/16: This story is essentially complete. I may come back to it later if inspiration strikes, but for now I'm leaving it as is.

**Author's Note:**

> [I have a Tumblr!](http://sroloc--elbisivni.tumblr.com) Come ask me questions or prompt me for this verse.


End file.
